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wBillieupool |
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Hi.
My name is Kate.
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wThursday, August 30, 2001 |
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So we got nothing but positive feedback from the the article. I'm very pleased. Matt, the editor, seems to want us to become semi-regular contributors. I wonder if I have it in me. Too often I doubt myself.
My back is still healing. Soon it will be as if nothing had happened, ever, except for the scar still purple and raked across my skin. I felt content today for many reasons, sad and distant for many more. There's a constant balance with which I battle: that of juxtaposing my need for people and friends and inclusion with my desperate tendency toward solitude. Words do poor justice in describing the quite physical feeling of being stretched across such a massive plane. I need both places and they don't coexist very well. I haven't written a poem since Elkahatchee Road calmly composed itself.
I feel very wrong when, for brief interludes or long stretches of exasperating barreness, poetry leaves me.
posted by
Kate at 10:27 PM
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wWednesday, August 29, 2001 |
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I'm already exhausted. The column is written and pending...the paper runs tomorrow. It's an okay article considering we had to have it completed by this morning. The structure and quality of it is...decent, but lacking fluidity. And it's a freaking opinion article, so we had a lot of fun with it, and it will probably piss people off. But that's okay. My only concern is that we sound unprofessional. Except that we are unprofessional, neither of us having ever before done any kind of journalistic writing...oh well. It took true gumption, and we did our job with an admiral amount of grace and intelligence. And so even if everyone else hates it...
*pats herself on the back.*
posted by
Kate at 12:46 PM
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wTuesday, August 28, 2001 |
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4 1/2 hours of Earth Science lab work. I am a poorly-made thinker at times.
I did a very rash and (maybe) stupid thing. I accompanied Miranda to a Trop (newspaper) meeting and voluteered to co-write an opinion column. We still haven't decided what we'll write about. Maybe our most noble Governor Siegalman and his recent brush with publicity concerning the unethical and immoral stigma of a 3rd grade boy and his ear peircing. Perhaps the prickly debate over embryonic stem cell research...or the man with the artificial heart. Does that make him a cyborg? :-)
At any rate, I don't usually form strong opinions about many things. I'm far, far too adept at seeing the three dimensional sides concerning many issues, and also I'm probably poorly informed and, most sadly, more than a little apathetic at times. I've never been one to entertain a heated debate, but I can and will. And every once in a while I enjoy it...and it's good for me.
Let's entertain the 5 senses in a little descriptive exercise. *this is very unoriginal of me but I like the idea so much*
See:
Many, many things. My computer and its tangle of wires. My brown Nine West purse perched atop the moniter. My ugly snot beige metal desk/drawers fixture. A framed picture of my Grandpa and me when I was only 3, huddled closely together and laughing like we'd just shared an inside joke the rest of the world will never be priveledged enough to know.
Hear:
The pur of the tower. An old AMC movie, softly playing from the far corner of the room. Hollow voices in the hall. Doors slamming and opening. Other girls living lives like mine...only quite different, paralleled by our living arrangements.
Smell:
Air conditioner. Dust. Some far away sent of a Glade Plug-in. The cold.
Feel:
The keyboard, grooved beneath my fingers. My knee propped against the metal drawers. The air, the chill of it, rushing in through my nose and the warmth of it rushing back out.
Taste:
The bitterness of sour cream and onion Pringles consumed 2 hours ago. The natural saltiness of my own mouth.
posted by
Kate at 12:40 AM
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wMonday, August 27, 2001 |
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I recieved my check from Cicada today. 36 sweet dollars that I will no doubt waste entirely. It's the first time in my life I've ever earned money by doing something I absolutely love.
I am wearing my farmer blouse. The cotton is so light I tend to forget it's there.
I think I'll go buy some low-fat frozen vanilla yogurt with M&Ms in the middle and on top. Ater that I think I'll go find some place outside to sit with my journal and write because I'm a stupidly-worded girl right now, and I throw about my potential word-savyness like the 3-year old flower girl I once was, deserting words like petals for the sake of the ceremony. When I have calmed myself down considerably and once more entered some semblance of a creative state, I will again remember that I am not a social creature, that I am meant for social interaction (god, yes) but that this constant coming and going and catering to everyone's void for a social darling has left me quite empty. examination: and who has morphed into the role of femme fatale lately? perhaps it is truly my fault that i weave webs of unconscious charm. it is rather, i'm afraid, a poor if lucky excuse for the awkward sweetness i've been known to exude. what i never realized is how macho that can make men feel. In any case, off I go.
posted by
Kate at 2:59 PM
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wThursday, August 23, 2001 |
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I'm as arid and carbonated as sprite...fluffy, social, sweet...cotton candy. Lately I have wanted to be anything but alone. Strange -- to need people so when usually I push them away. It was such a hard summer that I almost feel as if I need people, many of them, always around to be a buffer against all the jagged edges (physically and metaphorically) that I've collected since June.
When do I retract? Back into my shell...
I recieved two Cicada magazines in the mail Tuesday. They had printed my poem, "Sundays, Going Home," on page 1. It was rather amazing to see my work in print. Ethereal.
Beautiful.
posted by
Kate at 11:32 PM
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wSunday, August 19, 2001 |
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Dead
It's as if tomorrow will never happen. I walked across the campus in knee high grass, eyeing the fallen branches victim of the storm last night. A circular peice of styrofoam was caught in a tree and hanging limply like a noose. There were no birds. The air was thick with humidy, almost not breathable, hot, sticky...and not a soul in sight anywhere. Classes start...tomorrow?
posted by
Kate at 3:24 PM
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Hey. I'm back. Spent the majority of the night catching up with friends. My whole family came down with me today to deliver my stuff. Afterwards, we went out to eat and I thought - I can't possibly be happier with these people or love them more - and then they left, and I felt peculairly like I'd lost something. A blinding storm, hurricane-like in its intensity, knocked all the lights off at dusk. I was terrified of going into my empty, dark, lonely dorm room and sitting there all by myself for god knows how long, so I stalked about outside the TKE house until someone let me in. There I learned how to play pool, and that I'm invited to their Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday parties, and I had a nice chat with Richie and Thad. When I got back to the room, Bonnie was there.
I'm glad to be back.
posted by
Kate at 2:17 AM
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wFriday, August 10, 2001 |
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Taking a chance. Posting at work. Why I can't wait 7 days until I'm back in Troy and back into regular internet access I don't know. My shoulder is terrible. The Grand Canyon uprooted and settled deep into the flesh of my upper back. It's an out of body experience, sometimes, having an open wound. I know it's there, and yet it's all so surreal. I'm glad I can't see it very well.
posted by
Kate at 3:13 PM
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